Government withdraws all international flying rights and domestic slots from Kingfisher Airlines

In an official statement, the ministry of civil aviation announced the withdrawal of all international bilateral traffic rights allocated to the Vijay Mallya-owned carrier with "immediate effect". (Pic: AFP)

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NEW DELHI: Kingfisher Airlines seems to have reached the end of the road with the government withdrawing all international flying rights and domestic slots from the carrier, terminating all hopes for the loss-laden airline to make a possible comeback.

The government decided to take away these rights to free them up for use by other carriers.

In an official statement, the ministry of civil aviation announced the withdrawal of all international bilateral traffic rights allocated to the Vijay Mallya-owned carrier with "immediate effect".

These traffic rights were allocated to Kingfisher Airlines between the years 2008 and 2011 and have been withdrawn from Kingfisher Airlines on account of non-utilisation, the statement added.

"This would give additional availability of approximately 25,000 seats per week for use by other Indian carriers to these eight countries, some of which are much in demand by these carriers," the statement said.

Similarly, the ministry also decided to withdraw the domestic slots, which were allocated to Kingfisher Airlines at different airports for domestic flights. The Airports Authority of India has been directed to make these slots available to other domestic carriers as per their demand.

This seems to be the last in the series of developments, which would ensure that Kingfisher Airlines would not fly again.

The airline's hopes to fly again was rebuffed on February 13 when a consortium of 17 banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI), which lent close to 7,500 crore to the ailing carrier, said that they'd run out of patience and wanted to recall the loan.

Later, on February 14, the next day, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a body of the world's commercial airlines, informed Kingfisher Airlines of terminating its membership from the body if the airline fails to take to the skies again.

The licence of the loss-making carrier expired on December 31, 2012, for not being able to convince the government sufficiently about it's preparedness for revival.